Nikhila Balam

Azure DevOps Engineer with 7+ years of experience automating Azure infrastructure, CI/CD delivery, container platforms, security controls, and cloud operations. Hands-on with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Terraform/Bicep, AKS, Docker, Helm, Azure networking, governance, and observability. Builds reusable cloud patterns and deployment workflows, partners with development and security teams, and troubleshoots production issues across pipelines, Kubernetes, identity, DNS, networking, and application telemetry.

Senior Azure / AWS Cloud & DevOps Engineer - Confidential U.S. Client (NDA) - United States

(2025-01 - 2025-06)

• Established an Azure landing-zone baseline covering management groups, subscription structure, naming, tagging, Azure Policy, RBAC/PIM, diagnostic settings, Key Vault, Log Analytics, Defender for Cloud, and private DNS.
• Designed private connectivity with hub-spoke VNets, peering, UDRs, Azure Firewall, Application Gateway WAF, Front Door Premium, private endpoints, and DNS forwarding; documented reusable patterns for application teams.
• Developed reusable Terraform and Bicep modules for AKS, Container Apps, Front Door, Application Gateway, Key Vault, ACR, managed identities, monitoring, and networking, with automated validation and security checks.
• Migrated Azure DevOps repositories and YAML pipelines to GitHub Enterprise while preserving history and replacing variable groups and service connections with GitHub environments, secrets, reusable workflows, and OIDC-based authentication.
• Operated private AKS clusters using Azure CNI, multiple node pools, workload identity, Helm, HPA, Cluster Autoscaler, ingress, network policies, Container Insights, and controlled rollout and rollback procedures.
• Integrated DevSecOps controls using Wiz, Defender for Cloud, GitHub Advanced Security, Trivy, SonarQube, Checkov, dependency scanning, image scanning, and secret detection before environment promotion.
• Investigated incidents using KQL, Application Insights, Log Analytics, Kubernetes events, pod and ingress logs, firewall telemetry, DNS checks, private-endpoint validation, and deployment history; documented corrective actions and runbooks.

Azure DevOps Engineer - Randstad - India

(2018-09 - 2023-12)

• Provisioned Azure infrastructure with Terraform and ARM templates, including VNets, subnets, NSGs, route tables, private endpoints, Application Gateway, AKS, Azure SQL, Storage, Key Vault, and monitoring resources.
• Built Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions pipelines for infrastructure and application delivery with plan/apply separation, environment approvals, artifact promotion, automated testing, security scans, and rollback controls.
• Containerized microservices with Docker and deployed them to AKS using Helm, autoscaling, ingress controllers, pod security controls, and GitOps-style release practices; supported upgrades, node-pool changes, and incident resolution.
• Engineered hub-spoke and hybrid connectivity using VNet peering, VPN/ExpressRoute patterns, Azure Firewall, Private Link, private DNS, NSGs, UDRs, DDoS Protection, and Application Gateway WAF.
• Implemented cross-subscription governance with management groups, Azure Policy, RBAC, PIM, Microsoft Entra ID, managed identities, Key Vault, MFA, and Conditional Access.
• Established monitoring and incident workflows using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, Container Insights, Datadog, dashboards, alert rules, action groups, and KQL queries.
• Designed availability and disaster-recovery patterns using Availability Zones, VM Scale Sets, Load Balancer, Traffic Manager, Azure Backup, SQL geo-replication, and cross-region Storage and Cosmos DB replication.
• Applied FinOps and security controls through tagging, budgets, rightsizing, Advisor recommendations, lifecycle policies, Defender for Cloud, WAF rules, encryption, and vulnerability remediation; supported AWS services for hybrid dependencies.

DevOps Engineer - Rantus Pharma - Hyderabad, India

(2016-10 - 2018-07)

• Automated Azure virtual machines, virtual networks, Azure SQL, storage accounts, and baseline security configuration using Terraform and reusable provisioning scripts.
• Built Jenkins CI/CD pipelines with source-control triggers, unit tests, artifact management, SAST/DAST checks, deployment approvals, and rollback procedures.
• Containerized applications with Docker and standardized build, configuration, health-check, secrets-management, and deployment practices across environments.
• Implemented least-privilege access and secure connectivity using Azure RBAC, MFA, just-in-time VM access, Application Gateway, VNet peering, NSGs, and controlled public access.
• Managed Azure Blob Storage and AWS S3 encryption, access policies, lifecycle rules, retention, and archival tiers; supported operational monitoring through Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Datadog.

Bachelor of Science - Information Technology - BVRIT (2016)